Published 3:08 pm, Tuesday, June 7, 2016

BROWNSVILLE — A federal judge in Brownsville on Tuesday stayed his own order requiring ethics courses for Justice Department attorneys, and demanding the government turn over the names and addresses of 50,000 immigrants who received extended deportation reprieves under a controversial immigration policy.

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen gave the Justice Department until Aug. 22 to prove that its attorneys did not intentionally hide the issuance of three-year permits to the immigrants, despite his injunction blocking the government initiative.

In a scathing 28-page order issued in May, the Brownsville judge had ordered ethics courses for government attorneys who appear in any of the 26 states suing to block President Barack Obama’s plan to give millions of immigrants extended deportation reprieves and work permits.

In court Tuesday, Justice Department attorney James Gilligan insisted that attorneys for the government had been misunderstood, and that their statements to the court were never intended to mislead. Gilligan also said it was not the burden of government attorneys to disprove the allegations against them.

“You’re telling me ‘Judge, we’re the DOJ, we can lie cheat and steal and you can’t do anything about it’,” Hanen quipped.

Hanen also said his controversial order was largely based on guidance provided by the government attorneys that discouraged sanctions against individual attorneys.

“You filed a brief saying ‘Don’t do it for one. don’t do it for two, do it for everyone’,” Hanen said of the guidance he received from Justice Department attorneys on sanctions. “I did what you asked me to do.”

Hanen had given the government until June 10 to produce its list of people who received the three-year permits between Nov. 20, 2014, when Obama announced the expanded deferred action initiative, and March 3, setting off “a high level of reported fear, concern and confusion,” according to federal officials.